


You Make My Head Soft

by beanarie



Series: Failures At Communication [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: College AU, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-09
Updated: 2012-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 06:49:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanarie/pseuds/beanarie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite his manners and charm and vocabulary. Eames is a throwback in a lot of ways. He's like the first brilliant Neanderthal, or a foundling raised by wolves who happened to grow up to be a rocket scientist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Make My Head Soft

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone should have a friend like k8, who allows me to spam her with ridic fluff, never complains, and in fact asks for more. <3

Arthur notices things. He may not always comment on them, but he sees, he files away, and his brain forms links.

It starts at dinner. Eames eats more slowly than usual. He ends up dropping half his burger in the trash. His face is flushed.

He has no trouble giving Thomerson a hard time when the other guys start going on about how he hooked up with his British Lit TA. But only when someone addresses Eames directly.

He says he'll go with Khan to the movie museum on Saturday afternoon, forcing Arthur to remind him that they have a field exercise for ROTC that day.

While unlocking the door back at his dorm, he looks surprised to see Arthur, as if he didn't know Arthur was following.

"Hey," Arthur says, once they're inside. "Hey. What's wrong with you?" He touches Eames's shoulder. Eames flinches, turning away and spinning off in another direction as if Arthur burned him.

"Fuck off, would you?" He grabs a textbook and a handful of photocopied readings and plunks them on the desk next to his laptop. "I have five more pages to add before I can start editing this paper."

Arthur squints at the binding of the textbook. "What is this, Asian Religions? Isn't that not due until next month?"

"Look, I'm sorry but I-" His expression turns pinched for a moment, then it passes. "I like to get things done ahead of time. Helps ensure that they're done properly. Apparently you don't know anything about that."

"Eames, are you in _pain_?"

"Yes," he replies, glaring.

The implications are obvious, and Arthur already feels stupid enough. He raises his hands. "You know what, fine. You want me to fuck off, I'll fuck right the fuck off. Fucker."

As Arthur leaves, he hears Eames say, "Fan-fucking-tastic." And that's the straw that makes him slam the door.

On a fighting scale of one to ten, this barely registered as a tiff. They've gotten more heated over a session of Guitar Hero. So Arthur isn't surprised that Eames reaches out less than twelve hours later.

The only reason he's hostile, really, is because it's three in the morning.

"How'd you like a fatal accident on the shooting range?" Arthur asks thickly, steadfastly refusing to raise his head from the pillow. There's no answer at first. "Eames? Shit, was this a butt-dial?"

"Hey." Eames gulps audibly. "Come to parking lot C?"

"Are you kidding me? What the fuck are you-"

"Arthur, pl-"

"Um, fine," Arthur says, purposefully cutting Eames off before he can finish saying the word. He doesn't have to beg Arthur for anything. "Okay, I'll be right there." He ends the call, muttering to himself as he pulls on a sweater and a pair of jeans. If this is a prank, he will take the three thousand dollars in his bank account and pay someone to maim this boyfriend of his. Except, wait. Arthur's in the process of learning how to do that himself. So Eames can be his first kill. What an honor.

He finds Eames in the driver's seat of a familiar, weather-beaten Mazda Miata.

"Khan's car won't start," is the first thing Eames says. He's wearing a wife-beater and windpants. There are flip-flops on his feet with no socks. He's shivering and slumped against the steering wheel.

"Do you even have the keys?" Arthur asks. From the way he's positioned, it looks like he was considering hot-wiring the thing before changing his mind.

"Eh." Eames raises his hand and gives a weak, dismissive flutter before letting it drop. "...No, don't."

Arthur pauses in the middle of crouching down near the door, suddenly noticing the puddle of vomit on the ground. "Ugh. That was you, huh?"

"Yeah." His face twists, clearly pained. "I think I need a doctor. I think-" Eames clenches his jaw, breath coming forcefully through his nose, and he starts tipping forward. " _Move_."

Arthur springs out of the way, making sure to click the unlock button on the inside of the door before he does. As Arthur climbs into the passenger seat, Eames is finishing up. He spits on the ground and pulls himself back inside, letting out an involuntary string of displeased noises. Arthur takes off his hoodie and spreads it over Eames like a blanket. Eames growls lightly and makes a move as if to push it off.

Arthur's fingertips dig into Eames's upper arm. "I _don't care_ if you get puke on my sweatshirt, Eames." It actually works. Eames settles down. Arthur lets him sit there shaking for another few seconds, until he can't take it anymore, pulling Eames into his lap with a pre-emptive "Shut up." He feels around until he finds his phone in the pocket of the hoodie.

Eames tips his head back against Arthur's thigh, biting back a groan and pressing on his stomach with the heel of one hand. "Ah, fuck." He laughs as though there's something funny about any of this. "If you're calling an ambulance right now, I will fucking end you, I swear."

Arthur deletes the 9-1 from the dialer and brings up speed dial. "I'm calling Khan, asshole."

"S'late," Eames mumbles.

"It's okay. All I have to do is tell him his car got broken into and he'll come running." He runs his hand over the brown fuzz covering Eames's head. "How the hell did you manage that, by the way?"

The tiny smile only emphasizes the dark circles under Eames's eyes, the pallor of his face. "Trade secret," he says, as Khan blearily answers the phone.

When Arthur ends the call, Eames lets out a moan and starts to rise. "You need to get sick again?" Arthur asks.

"I don't want to be seen like this."

Arthur shakes his head. "It's just Khan."

"I don't," he repeats. With that he's up, more or less.

Arthur knew this was coming. Really, he did. They don't tell people they're together. No one knows, apart from Khan, and that's only because he spends so much time with them he'd have to have the deductive reasoning of a rock _not_ to know. Even Arthur's suite-mate, who sleeps in his girlfriend's off campus apartment more often than not, has no clue.

They don't hide it, per se; they just don't advertise. And Arthur knows it isn't that Eames is ashamed of him. It's just that their relationship, like everything else that genuinely matters to him, isn't anyone else's business. Arthur feels the same way, to a large extent.

He's in the middle of these deep thoughts, clutching the phone in case Eames should get worse or Khan should fail to show up in the next three minutes, when Eames bumps up against Arthur's side, planting a clumsy kiss on Arthur's throat, and says something that, well. There's an L-word followed by a "you", and Arthur knows it's not what he heard, because the thing he heard is... simply not what was said. And anyway it doesn't matter. There's a slight chance that Eames thinks he's dying right now, plus there's the fever, and nothing he says should be taken as... yeah.

"Same here," Arthur says in a voice that barely carries. Eames lays his hot head on Arthur's shoulder because apparently that's acceptable.


End file.
